Palmetto Regional

Team 346 left the nest for the weekend for the Palmetto Regional in Myrtle Beach, SC.

The RoboHawks had a slow start Thursday, hardly getting any practice matches in as we were still tweaking our design and testing our system. We did give away many of our buttons, ear plugs, first aid kits, and microfiber towels, all of which let other teams recognize us and keep us in mind! We began scouting from the pits and on the field to get a feel of which teams would be strong allies in the coming matches.

Friday, we had six qualification matches, and performed well, showing our strengths on the field for possible future alliance mates. We continued to keep our pits clean and organized, and showed many people our safety video on ear protection! Our team got double smiles for housekeeping for the cleanliness and organization of out pit on Thursday and Friday.

Saturday, we had our last three elimination matches, winning them all and further showing our capabilities on a possible alliance. We finished ranked 23rd with an average qualifying match score of 44.44, but showed our capability in each match. This led to us being selected by the 3rd highest ranked team, Team 1102 – M’Aiken Magic, and together we chose our third alliance partner, Team 836 – The RoboBees. We fought hard in the quarterfinals matches and advanced to the semifinals, but were sadly knocked out in the third semifinals match. We ended our elimination matches with an average match score of 65 and were very proud with our accomplishments at our first competition!

To end the weekend on an exciting note, we were awarded the Industrial Safety Award sponsored by Underwater Laboratories! We worked very hard to have fun and keep our team and every other team at the competition safe and we are very thankful and proud to have been recognized with this gracious award! All in all, this was an amazing trip that brought our team closer together and taught us more about our robots strengths and weaknesses. In the next few weeks we will be working on modifications and our strategy in order to give our very best performance at the Virginia Regional coming up on March 19th!

We would like to thank our sponsors, supporters, and all of the other teams at the Palmetto Regional Competition for giving us the opportunity to show our robot and our team in South Carolina!